There’s a new Boomer vs. Millennial piece over at Esquire making its way across the intertubes. If you hadn’t noticed, wringing one’s hands about Baby Boomers gorging themselves on the syrupy sweet hopes and dreams of the young’ns is the newest game in town. And though I’ve had my say on the topic, you just know shit’s getting real when the cologne-scented glossies chime in.

But Stephen Marche’s Esquire essay, “The War Against Youth,” left me feeling queasy, and by the end of it, I was ready to commit seppuku over a dog-eared copy of Das Kapital. So please excuse me while I indulge in a little Maoist self-criticism.

Marche’s essay hit all the same notes I hit. He even used the same David Frum quote. (Hi, Stephen!) And yes, he wants you to know that he stands firmly with the young and righteous Millennials. So how is it that his conclusions are straight out of a Wall Street Journal editorial? It was like being forced to watch my doppelgänger hack up an innocent: I didn’t do it, but jesus—except for the whole fiendish-grin and no-pupils thing, that looks a hell of a lot like me swinging that axe.

I hate to say it because after all Boomer-hatin’ really is fun and slightly cheerier than regular down-in-the-mouth anti-capitalism, but Marche’s “The War Against Youth” validates every single hostility the no-bullshit Left holds towards anything that smacks of generational politics. And it shows you just why you gotta be careful before you take aim at the gray-hairs.

Not because of any squeamishness about youthful Red terrors or blood trails across the suburban sunbelt. Actually, the wealthy are more than happy to root for us. They’re eager to sick the Millennials on the Boomers. But not because they want us to have any of the Boomers’ goodies: welfare state, living wages, pensions, health insurance, etc. Instead, they wanna engender the same kind of puritanical, reactionary mindset in Millennials that the ruling class used to quash the young radicals nearly a half century ago.

Just as the Nixonites resented the radicals for their free love and refusal to maim and be maimed on the Mekong, the capitalist class in 2012 wants us to hate the Boomers for their Social Security checks. That’s right: the ruling class wants to mold Millennials into their very own Silent Majority.

Let’s get back to Marche’s “The War Against Youth.” It starts off fine. If you weren’t paying attention, you might even miss it. He hits all the basics. Big mean Boomers sucking up all the cash, leaving the kiddies with scraps. We’ve seen it all before: college debt, slave-labor internships, foregoing a mortgage in the ‘burbs, etc.

Stephen Marche: Millennial hackburglar

But you won’t find a word about mass incarceration, food insecurity, or military enlistment. That’s your first clue. Because none of those miseries apply to the progeny of the ruling classes. Hey, the wealthy worry about their pups too. Isn’t that the whole point of Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow’s new show: the indignities of a 21st century economy under which even the rich kids suffer?

But here’s where Marche really tears off the mask:

“[I]t’s clear that the American system is a bipartisan fusion of economic models broken down along generational lines: unaffordable Greek-style socialism for the old, virulently purified capitalism for the young.”

“Greek-style?” He really tipped his hand there. Here’s some advice: if you hear someone utter the phrase “Greek-style socialism,” take a swing. Preferably with some aluminum in your grip. You’ll be doing us all a favor. And “socialism for the old”? You mean living wages and meagre retirement pensions? Those lazy, back-haired bastards! I guess the post-austerity sport of dumpster-diving for rats or Athens moms giving handjobs for sandwiches really is just the New Frugality–lessons in good ol’ Protestant thriftiness that’ll knock some sense back into those swarthy Mediterraneans.

It’s the kind of bloodthirsty terminology that’s been burbling up out of the Wall Street Journal editorial pages for decades. And it’s the same exact strategy employed by The Economist over a century and a half ago during the Irish Potato famine, when limeys marched all the food right off the island, spitting on all the skeletal bodies in the way for being undisciplined in the ways of the free market.

The message from the Anglo-American Lords of Finance then and now is clear: Greeks and Irishmen are just a tad too “other” to be spared. Wealth trickles through their slack and careless hands. Might as well send the P.I.G.S. off to the slaughterhouse. They’re western, maybe, but not quite white enough. I mean, they’re some kind of Papists, right?

Iceland, though—man, those elves got a raw deal!

And of course, no piece of austerity propaganda is complete without a bald-faced lie about the pittance known as Social Security. Marche calls the program “the biggest boondoggle of all” and says “the fund will run out in 2036.” A lie. A lie best taken apart by economist Dean Baker, who was all over Marche’s bullshit numbers just a couple of days after “The War Against Youth” went live. Needless to say Marche also fails to mention that the Social Security tax is capped after the first $110,100 of income, which means that a billionaire shitstain like Peter Thiel pays the same amount of cash into the system as a Nurse Practitioner.

Marche shows his true colors again a little later when he starts wringing his hands about “crony capitalism.” Crony capitalism! A term endlessly test-marketed and trotted out by Sarah Palin and the rest of the GOP all in order to spare the good name of our virginal free market. It’s the “union thug” of the 21st century. But I don’t think it’s gonna work. “Crony capitalism” sounds too appealing. Who needs “cold, impersonal” capitalism, when you can split a six-pack with your crony? How about “wingman capitalism”? Cronies for life, bro.

***

I’m not saying Marche is some kind of a deep-cover right-winger. Last summer, Esquire published his bootlicking study of the president entitled–I shit you not–”How Can We Not Love Obama?” Here’s a sampling:

“Reagan was able to call upon the classic American mythology of frontiersmen and astronauts and movie stars; Obama has accessed a much wider narrative matrix: He’s mixed and matched Jay-Z with geek with Hawaiian with Kansan with product of Middle America with product of a broken home with local Chicago churchgoer with internationally renowned memoirist with assassin…We can finally see who he is, we can finally understand the reality: In 2011, it is possible to be a levelheaded, warmhearted, cold-blooded killer who can crack a joke and write a book for his daughters…Barack Obama is developing into what Hegel called a ‘world-historical soul,’ an embodiment of the spirit of the times. He is what we hope we can be. We love Obama — even those who claim to despise him — because deep in our hearts and all over our lives, we’re the same way.”

Marche is merely the perfect example of how eager American liberals are to accommodate the ideology of the ruling class, “austerity” being all the rage these days. It’s nothing new. Liberals have always been useful servants. And they’ve been following their spiritual masters in the Democratic Party over the free market cliff for decades, even now as they squeeze out a few about inequality. Hey, they’ll always have a pet project.

But liberals aren’t just surrendering to all this debt-mongering bullshit, they’re chipping in like the good little poodles they are. They’re more than happy to cheer on the Millennials. Not for anything like socialism but for more austerity.

Let’s not forget that it was two card-carrying liberals—investment banker and temporary dictator of New York City Felix G. Rohatyn and class-warrior emeritus Paul Volcker—who helped launch the neoliberal revolution that gutted wages and sent corporate profits soaring. But Occupy Wall Street and generational politics gives these balanced-budget liberals the perfect narrative to try and squeeze in their austerity-love while ostensibly remaining on the side of the cosmopolitan, the young and the attractive.

If you were to ask them straight up, they’d tell you they were on your side. And in a fucked-up way, they’re telling you the truth. They’ll say they’re in this thing for the future–the youth of America. To them, it’s the old folks that are suckin’ the socialist teat and bankrupting the country.

Generational politics allows the ruling class to dress up our economic catastrophe as simply an ‘imbalance’ between two generations of wage-earners. And once they’ve spun that tale, then they can go in and clean everyone out in the name of fiscal and intergenerational harmony.

And it’s not just the liberals. Even the GOP indulges in Millennial concern-trolling, though you won’t see them shed a crocodile tear for Occupy—unlike their Democratic peers they never made it with a hippie. But most every week, turn on C-SPAN and you can hear some House Republican screeching about how “entitlements” shackle our grandchildren with debt. So they, too, are “on our side.”

***

This is where our era’s brand of puritanical liberalism–with all its moralism about consumer culture and finger-waving about greed and excess–clears a path for this con. Just another variation on the same Protestant theme. So you can understand why overlords like Pete Peterson want you to see the Boomers as living the life on your dime. Not so that you’ll demand the same and more, but to convince you that healthcare on-demand and a decent retirement are luxuries no one should have–except for the wealthy, of course.

That’s why we need to take a stand against the hairshirt left, the Chris Hedges of the country that try to veer us off course with all their self-flagellation about consumerism. Fuck asceticism. iPads and flat-screens for all! Hell, Marx would agree.

As readers of The eXile know, there’s nothing more American than hating others for enjoying themselves. It’s just more of that Protestant backwash that’s soaked this country into a marsh of petit-bourgeois wannabes. Along the coasts or in between, you’ll hear all that guff about freeloaders, decadence and indulgence on both the Right (“Welfare queens”) and the Left (the anti-consumerism crusades).

Hey, I’m glad these folks were around back in the 1850s. We gotta hand it to the Protestant penny pinchers: they knew how to carve up Confederates like no one else. And of course that whole industrial revolution thing. Let’s give credit where credit’s due. Public schools, R&D, libraries, trains, electrification: all good things. But that crew wore out their welcome a hundred years ago.

Just open up any page in Eric Foner’s classic on the origins of GOP ideology and cringe: back then, the good guys sounded just like Paul Ryan, preaching the glories of private property and fretting about “class warfare” brewing in the cities. It’s no wonder it’s Karl Rove’s favorite book. Drop him in an 1850s Massachusetts mill town and the little piggy’s a progressive. The only difference between now and then is, well, everything. Everything except the rhetoric.

As James Livingston’s work has revealed, saving and private investment hasn’t done shit for this economy since 1919. Its consumption and government spending that’s been doing the trick for nearly a hundred years. And yet we’re still shoveling pig iron for Andrew Carnegie and begging for scraps.

This is the 21st century. With just a few keystrokes, millions of us could finally go see a doctor, buy groceries, or enroll at the local university. But no, we’re told, it’s not that simple. Thing is, it is that simple. If it weren’t for the “honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work” crowd, we could’ve long ago whittled down the workweek to twenty-hours. The only thing left standing in the way is a religion that’s long since fled the chapel and settled into the cubicle.

Even the Swedes–equal parts social democratic and Lutheran–based their welfare state on everyone working. Anything to avoid the dreaded welfare queen. This called for the creation of a vast bureaucracy–”active labor market programs”– that ended up costing them more than if they’d just mailed out unemployment checks.

***

Look, I know it’s hard. South Park and the Daily Show have convinced a good number of Millennials that doing something as declarative as talking about Big Bushy Bearded shit like, say, “labor and capital” is to invite ridicule. After all, zealotry is for losers, right? Sorry. There’s no getting around it. Buy a Cliffs Notes or something.

As much fun as it is to kick around the Boomers, we gotta move past it. Generational politics is a dead-end. Fuck it, someone slap the shit out of me if I ever say the word “Millennial’ after this. Because once we’ve set up this economic collapse as nothing more than generational warfare, we’re already lost–we’ve created a narrative which the wealthy can easily co-opt and spin for their own fiendish ends.

So keep your eyes on the prize, Millennials: it’s capitalism that’s the problem. Not the grey-hairs.

82 Comments

I get sort of ill whenever I see Matt Taibbi blathering about “crony capitalism” too. And will now just link this article

2. Zog | April 23rd, 2012 at 11:46 pm

Great! I was planning to kill my mom but after reading this I don’t have to. Thanks Connor! Keep our eye on the ball, the ball is Kapitalizm!

3. B1 | April 24th, 2012 at 12:11 am

But old people make such easy targets! Can’t we just indulge this once?

4. Mason C | April 24th, 2012 at 12:23 am

My hatred of Boomers has never been about evening up some economic score, but asking a key question: the generation that fronted the extinct-or-soon-to-be advances of the early 70s, where the hell are they now? The sociopolitical dead weight of the Boomers is a serious problem.

At the polls they didn’t oppose our charge back into the 17th century – it was Boomers, who ironically were Nader’s footsoldiers, that mocked his attempts to re-center mainstream political awareness, and I’m not aware of (m)any Boomers who correctly diagnosed and mocked Obama’s candidacy.

So, sure, generational warfare in itself is a dead end; cooperation is always a better bet. There are bigger liberal fish to fry, and it’s more fun to stymie billionaires and their servants. But letting clueless, self-indulgent Boomers off the hook isn’t on the menu. They’re like Dolan’s Reaganites with better dental care, and deserve a thrashing.

5. Hussain Khariq | April 24th, 2012 at 12:58 am

Why not have it both ways? i.e. Punish the old reactionaries by taking away their benefits then restore those benefits when they’re all dead.

6. Boomtang | April 24th, 2012 at 1:39 am

nice work

7. Dr. X | April 24th, 2012 at 1:47 am

Glory to Cadre Kilpatrick!

8. Anton | April 24th, 2012 at 6:14 am

That’s why we need to take a stand against the hairshirt left, the Chris Hedges of the country that try to veer us off course with all their self-flagellation about consumerism. Fuck asceticism. iPads and flat-screens for all!

You’re just a retard who wants to have his cake and eat it too. If this is your mentality, there is hardly any difference between you and an average libertard pawn. Consumerism is to market-fundamentalism what nationalism was to fascism. Seeing it as some irrelevant scape-goat is either dishonest or stupid. Who do you mean by ‘all’? Also the people in the Asian sweatshops assembling the said goods? It’s either or: either we cut down the living standards of everybody, especially the hyper-consumeristic Americans, OR we retain de-facto slavery in one form or another, as has been the case throughout ages.

9. euro-dude | April 24th, 2012 at 6:36 am

Editorial typo niggle … Article above says in its original form:

« … suckin’ the socialist teet … »

Should be ‘teat’ I think.

This generation-war seems somewhat uniquely an American problem, as the US followed the old Roman Empire ‘divide and rule strategy’, via geezers versus workers, set into stone in the 1960s, when Lyndon Johnson stupidly gave only American old people Medicare, while letting young people and workers continue to suffer and die without heath insurance.

In Europe social benefits (‘socialist teat-sucking’) and health care rights are usually pretty even with young and old. So this generational-war garbage doesn’t wash here.

And it’s way too academic and Mr Left Wing Professor, to try and deprive people of the phrase ‘crony capitalism’ to refer to America’s Nazi-like oligarchic tyranny, just because some crony capitalists themselves, will co-opt the term like they will try and co-opt anything.

Damn it, we need some phrase to talk about this, and ‘crony capitalism’ is as suitable as any. No phrase is immune from co-opting attempts.

And ‘crony capitalist’ is better than ‘fascist’, actually, as more old-style classic European fascism, Franco’s Spain type, actually included a certain amount of worker support and income protection for those who kept their mouths shut regarding the dictatorship. Whereas the American type of tyranny, leaves even arse-licking workers jobless, homeless and with nothing except the SNAP ‘food stamp’ US $133 a month or so in food-buying funds.

On the plus side, those most likely to be “silent majority millenials” – randroids and other libertarian screwheads – are predominantly white male dweebs who are an ever diminishing minority. It just seems like there’s a lot of ’em because they spend all their time polluting the internet.

11. sixpackcompact | April 24th, 2012 at 7:14 am

‘Thing is, it is that simple.’ Twenty hour days? Absolutely. You’re entirely and completely correct. Labour productivity doubles every 30-odd years at least, so that means (with 2012 tech) a 1980s style of life on a twenty-hour week. Pretty good, eh? But in even the most ‘advanced’ Western economies ordinary people have done no better than the 40-hour week for at least a century. And that’s because they’re fucking dumb. I tell people that hate work that this shit isn’t necessary and they just roll their eyes. As much as they hate it, they can’t even imagine anything else. They even say shit like ‘I just wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t come to work’, or ‘You mean I couldn’t go shopping to console myself for a fucked-up fifty-hour week of mind-destroying shit? Oh, I couldn’t stand that!’ I used to be a socialist. Now all I hope is that a giant fucking asteroid will kill us all. It is simple, but still no one gets it. There’s no hope whatsoever except in extinction. And I cite Dolan’s ‘In Praise of Nuclear Winter’ on that, lest I get the AEC up my ass for trying to derail the cause with utter nihilism.

12. Mr. Bad | April 24th, 2012 at 8:00 am

@ 8. Anton

Brilliant.

Also, where did you get “food insecurity”, that’s really digging deep in the fattest fucking country in the world. I was once, for a few months homeless (lived in my car) and even then I did not find it difficult to eat. Getting food stamps is easier than catching herpes since welfare reform, ask anyone on the exiled staff. I don’t begrudge the Boomers for their SSI, Medicare or even their pensions I hate them for forming the electoral base of the most corrupt and evil pseudo democracy farce of a country on the face of the earth.

Also for claiming to have “stopped” the Vietnam War, for starting the wars on drugs, terrorism, and whatever else you can make war on without putting their ass on the line for any of it.

13. Rob | April 24th, 2012 at 9:00 am

Honestly, most “Millennials” are either totally apolitical or quiet reactionaries about anything besides the gays. This is, after all, the generation that grew up with the neoliberal propaganda of the 80s and 90s being beamed into their heads. If you want to see that, just try sitting through an university strike.

14. Fissile | April 24th, 2012 at 9:57 am

@9. euro-dude

To be fair, LBJ was taking the first step toward universal health care in the US, I don’t think he was playing divide and conquer. Oh, during the 60’s just about everyone who worked received some form of health insurance through their employer. The next prez to come up with a workable universal health care plan was Nixon. His plan was derailed by none other than Ted Kennedy.

@ 12. Mr. Bad

That about sums it up. The boomer gen turned out to be the most reactionary paranoid group of people this country has ever seen.

15. gc | April 24th, 2012 at 10:00 am

“That’s why we need to take a stand against the hairshirt left, the Chris Hedges of the country that try to veer us off course with all their self-flagellation about consumerism. Fuck asceticism.”

But for God’s sake, if you’re going to reference them, attach some kind of disclaimer. Even if you know what’s wrong with them, you might steer some innocent young things who don’t know any better into their clutches.

My beef with the boomers has always been more about the dead hand they have on the cultural till of the west.

My only quibble with the essay presented here is that mindless consumerism is, indeed one of the central elements of the world-historical crisis of our time. So..iPads and flat screens for everyone is a good idea in theory but maybe lets figure out just who this ‘everyone’ is here…all eight billion or whatever?

It may sound impossibly retro, but our species is not going to solve the problem that we evolved in an environment shared with large hunting cats and that we’re more suited to bashing shit over the head than holding hands and cooperating. So let’s get back to moving into space. Otherwise we’re going to enter the fossil record in pretty sorry ass shape.

17. Greasty Balls | April 24th, 2012 at 11:51 am

Yea!

18. gc | April 24th, 2012 at 12:12 pm

the world-historical crisis of our time

Vomit.

19. MF | April 24th, 2012 at 1:07 pm

Generational warfare is a complete red herring. There are plenty of boomers who have no savings, inadequate healthcare, and are going to work until they die because they have no choice.

If you don’t witness that then you must come from a privileged, bourgeois background. Maybe there’s some intergenerational envy among the rich, represented by the Lena Dunham show the author mentions. But for many young people, their parents are struggling as much as they are.

Saying boomers are living high off the hog is like calling inner city blacks welfare queens. It’s a tactic to get the resentful/racists to spite those catching a needed break. Everyone ends up eating shit rather than enjoying food/health/employment security, public transportation, and all the other good things a just democracy could provide.

Props to the Exiled, for pointing out the central role of spite in American politics, once again.

20. Hick | April 24th, 2012 at 1:16 pm

Hahaha local right-wing radio ranter Ray Appleton is going on about Kidney Boss, the lady who fired the employee who donated a kidney to her, and ranting it up good! Complete with the Darth Vader theme music in the background.

I know this is off-topic but it shows how deeply this story is getting to people even those “on the plantation”.

21. BigFan | April 24th, 2012 at 1:24 pm

Finally, the Exiled gets it. I’ve heard too much from libertarian-inspired youth that Social Security and Medicare are “unsustainable” “Ponzi schemes.”

No.

That’s what the Koch trolls want you to think. They want the young and the old ninety-nine percenters to fight for smaller chunks of a diminishing pie, while they continue to reap all of the productivity gains from this vast Darwinian workhouse.

22. BigFan | April 24th, 2012 at 1:40 pm

Before the AEC comes down on me, I should just mention that I enjoy the mockery of denialist Boomers, and Connor Kilpatrick’s earlier article about struggling Millenials and Tea Party boomers.

I understand that the Exiled is probably playing it one step at a time – first, draw attention to the “I’ve got mine, so screw you” older citizens who legitimize the oligarchs consumption of America’s youth.

Then, after demonstrating that elites have “pulled away the ladder” of economic growth for the young, we then hear about how most older folk are struggling too.

Then, we put two and two together and see the big con.

THE A.E.C. RESPONDS:

Zzzzz—Wha-wha-what’?? Did someone call Me about something? I was napping, can’t you idiots give Me a moment’s rest? No? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

23. Alexei Belyaev-Gintovt | April 24th, 2012 at 6:51 pm

Did you know that a lot of small record stores are sustained entirely from t-shirt sales?

Something to think about, mazzafakaz.

24. Whyawannaknow | April 24th, 2012 at 7:31 pm

[QUOTE] There are plenty of boomers who have no savings, inadequate healthcare, and are going to work until they die because they have no choice. [/QUOTE]

Yeah… That’s me. Born in 1960, officially a boomer.

Fuck you all, by the time I needed a full time job the economy was doing the major post WWII contraction from our going negative on the domestic oil production vs. import ratio flip in the 70’s. Followed by the plague of Reagan and Bush the elder, everything my grade school weekly reader promised for the future being snatched away while lacoste shirted preppies were elevated to the pinnacle once reserved for big tittied hippy chicks. I STILL WANT MY FLYING CAR, YOU RAT BASTARDS!!!

Then it got worse as the democraps were totally captured by the ruling oligarchy and some grinning asshole from Arkansas showed up, snowed everyone who should have known better and gave us NAFTA to go with a heaping helping of Walmart China/Mexico job export.

Next, the wonderfulness of my life was increased by the post cold war paradigm required to keep shoveling all our money to the same greedy asshats who’d been gobbling it up since 1942 or so. Terroists EVERYWHERE!!! (no, I didn’t leave that “r” out accidentally).

So, while I wait to die of cancer, either from the fallout that rained out over my Midwestern home from open air nuke testing in the 60’s or the newest wave of “made in Japan” hot particles… I can be amused by young pups who are propagandized that I’ve had it unreasonably good my whole life. Fuck you again, I’ve got to go weed the garden and feed the chickens now or I won’t eat next winter. If I live that long. Get out of my way before I hit you with my cane.

25. RedBastardGod | April 24th, 2012 at 9:01 pm

Overshoot. Our species has exceeded the carrying capacity of this planet. Collapse is inevitable. Welcome to the Stone Age, morons.

26. mlrky | April 24th, 2012 at 9:21 pm

@10

yeah, you heard Trevor! if you’re a white male dweeb, not only are you not wanted in the movement, but you’re probably a randroid libertarian screwhead anyhow, so why bother even trying? go over to the Koch side, where at least you can be with your own kind while you’re getting crapped on.

you must be this —- cool to enter, don’t dilute the brand

27. Hick | April 24th, 2012 at 9:58 pm

#24 you get it. “They” say the Boomers are those born up until 1965 or so but that’s not where the division is. I’d say it’s pre-1960 vs. post-1960. My older sis, 1957 model I think, Boomer all the way and her life was a complete Boomerfest. She had “show” Persian cats, got into the National Spelling Bee, had a governess, an expensive private school, etc., you name it. We younger siblings, born 1961-1965, whom she referred to as “beasts”, had very different life experiences. Out of the 4 of us, 75% enlisted military, 50% HS graduation, I don’t know if any of us are making more than $30k a year, I know I’m sure not.

We caught the economy just as it truly began to suck. I entered the work force just in time for the 1980 slump. It’s been little better since. College has had a negative ROI for me and chances are, it has for you also.

You mention feeding the chickens and weeding the garden, same thing I did today also. You might want to consider, if you have an excess of eggs right now, pickling them so you’ll have pickled eggs to see you through those few months they’re not laying. I *was* selling my extra eggs to defray the cost of feed, but I have to assume in 6 or 8 months I might be much more glad to have those pickled eggs than a few USD’s.

28. Pokey | April 24th, 2012 at 11:08 pm

Sorry I am leaving you kids a steaming pile of shit. It really was not my intent.

I’m not sorry that I’ll have croaked before getting to see your generational failures. With a generation galvanized by Vietnam, we should have done better. When the war ended so did that sense of unity. Don’t know where it went.

Your age group is so fractured that you don’t have any chance of escape from the lives of your parents though it is shockingly possible that you’ll never enjoy the “security” they have. There is a small chance that conditions will get so bad that a force will rise from below, but remember it has to get really bad — like the conditions in Russia in 1917. If the grim reapers succeed in destroying the tattered social safety net, you may have the conditions that precipitated the 1789 revolution (nobles paying no tax, oppressive taxes on the poor, today largely in the form of interest, with a little starvation for good measure), but consider how much stronger the police state is today. The revolution is not coming.

Don’t want to be a downer. I’ve been amused, saddened, and delighted since stumbling onto this discussion. If I’m wrong about your chances for collective outrage, I can find a pitchfork, and I really want to roast Chris Christie on a spit and peel the skin off Grover Norquist.

29. Milovan Djilas | April 24th, 2012 at 11:40 pm

We proles demand a return to Snapperwelt!

30. Seriously, A BottomTard Says What? | April 25th, 2012 at 6:18 am

Wow, not sure where to begin on this one.

My Your anecdotes about Greeks dumpster diving for rats and Athens moms giving handjobs for food.. do you have a source for this or are you just trying to be extreme?

You’re all for calling others liars, but seems like you’re ok with making up anecdotes to prove your point.

Secondly, you claim to be anti-capitalist, yet you are running a COMMERCIAL website that actively tries to shame readers into “donations”

Lastly, can you identify any society in modern times or historically, which prospered without capitalism or some variant thereof?

AEC: Comment left as is to preserve it for study and analysis by tomorrow’s bagtardologists.

31. Susan | April 25th, 2012 at 7:40 am

don’t know why they go after the boomers. how about women aged 87 to 97? why not go after them? they have better benefits than we’ll ever have. and they’re weaker.

32. Seriously | April 25th, 2012 at 7:58 am

You’re calling me a bagtardologist as opposed to providing an answer to my actual questions?

That’s extremely unprofessional.

In all seriousness, how can you claim to be anti capitalist whilst collecting ad revenue and soliciting donations?

And can you back up your source regarding Greek dumpster diving / handjobs?

I am asking you this seriously, as someone who is interested in learning more about the situation there. If you have an actual source, please share it.

33. Sparky | April 25th, 2012 at 8:05 am

I was born in 85 so I guess I’m a millennial, and to be honest, I’m finding most people in my age group are just as unaware as any other demographic. If they are not young Republican Ron Paulites, then they’re ardent supporters of the Democratic party. Of course I live in Texas which has its own brand of insanity. Maybe things are different in Seattle and New York.

My friends find a few select issues to bitch about like SOPA or Santorum’s religious fanaticism but fail to grasp the fundamental problem with our plutocratic economic model that’s destined to drive us into the shitter. None of them actually bother to read or research anything and know shit-all about the financialization of the US these past thirty years.

The only like-minded people I’ve met was a well traveled older guy who was born before 45 and a Vietnam war veteran who practically lived his life in a local public library.

Unfortunately, there is a massive intellectual and political malaise in this country and there are few, if any, voices of reason in the mainstream. Its not about to get better with the Millenials.

We’re practically destined for a new Gilded Age except without actual economic development. Instead, there will be financial strip mining of the United States’ remaining public assets. A sort of modern day version of Roman Bucellarii system that emerged at the end of the Western Empire.

I can’t wait for the day I get to see Monsanto-Blackwater drones gunning down protesters camped outside of their corporate feudal land holdings. I wonder which company I will have swear fealty to?

34. Seriously | April 25th, 2012 at 8:08 am

One last post.

Oh goodie!

I would think you would be encouraged that those with a different perspective from you are visiting your site and reading your articles.

Of course, if I would think this, I would be an imbecile.

If you ever hope to achieve meaningful change, you’ll have to have the support of people who don’t initially subscribe to your views.

Yeah really, it’s true–I learned that in my high school civics class. Got a B+ in that class, but an “E” for “Excellent brownnosing.” Very proud of that still.

You may choose to insult me personally should you wish. Just know that should you choose to do so, it will be the last time I read your articles or visit your site.

The A.E.C. asks, “Is that a promise? Don’t let the comment-door hit your fingertips on your way out!

If you’re not able to treat people with respect, I don’t see any reason to respect your point of view.

Gosh. Wow. Now that you put it that way– really gets us questioning ourselves and what we’re doing here. Maybe we’re doing it all wrong. Maybe it’s all about building coalitions and reaching across partisan lines–your neck is across that partisan line right? Cuz we want to reach it, real bad-like. Just to, you know, respect you and stuff.

35. Odikhmantievich | April 25th, 2012 at 8:11 am

@ 8. Anton

Wrong. Slavery isn’t necessary for production – its just a way to raise profits. A central appeal of the socialist alternative is that we [democratic control] can do it [economics] better.

See 11. sixpackcompact

36. matt | April 25th, 2012 at 8:57 am

“Lastly, can you identify any society in modern times or historically, which prospered without capitalism or some variant thereof?”

Anyway, I really liked this article, but think that I have to agree with the people criticizing the “ipads and flat-screens for all” idea. I tend to think that Hedges is a bit extreme in his asceticism, but to totally go in the other direction and wallow in the worst excesses of modern mass culture is idiotic. In fact, I’m surprised that such a foolish idea could take place in what is otherwise a very refreshing essay.

38. Anton | April 25th, 2012 at 12:07 pm

@ 35. Duh. Who said anything about production? I was referring to the present day dichotomy of living standards. The reason Kilpatric can propose with a straight face flat screens and iPhones for ‘all’ is that the said goods are relatively cheap for all those who aren’t sweatshop-serfs, debt-slaves etc. (After all, he is not proposing Ferraris and mansions for ‘all’.) So why are those nice toys relatively cheap to ‘us’? Precisely BECAUSE of that very global serfdom/slavery. The global wealth has always been generated – along with innovation and co-operation and ferile conflicts and competition – out of the backs of a slave or slave-like masses. This is just a plain fact. If you want to retain, nay, extend the level of living standards which the higher classes have thus far enjoyed by this formula, you will have to keep trucking the feudal path in one way or another. ( A socialist UTOPIA will no doubt be able produce cakes that can be both eaten and kept untouched in the cupboard.) There was a little newspaper story about Chinese working class kid who, inflicted by consumerism no doubt (tisk tisk), wanted an iPhone, so he went off and sold his kidney to some shady organ vendor. Shortly after the operation his other kidney went AWOL. Bottom line: Even hippies are right sometimes. The present day level of consumerism is unsustainable in SO many levels, even – as Kilpatrics article proofs- when trying to build a sound argument on anything. Hedges is an insufferable, snobbish and pompous little man, but on this matter he is spot on.

Such easy solutions, but Obama and all the other leaders are a joke (too busy kissing ass and protecting bankster-overlords)

Double the Social Security payout immediately (pay for 75% of it simply by lifting the cap on what those making over $106,000 pay in – that’s right the more you make the less of a percentage of your income you pay into SS) – with SS doubled people can be urged to take early retirement at 60-62 -thus opening up jobs for Gen-X (long underemployed), Gen-Y and Millennials

… as author Jeremy Rifkin pointed out many years ago in his book The End of Work we no longer need so many people working so many hours so we simply don’t have the good jobs in the numbers people want (technology, improved productivity, etc)- we need to transition “full-time” down to 35 hrs, then 30, 25 and so on while retaining full benefits

There is plenty of money for everything (six-week paid vacation like Europeans get, free national health care) – we merely mandate that the trillion$ in cash the corporations are sitting on must be spent within 90 days of the federal gov’t seizes it … we order that the financial industry loan out the trillion$ in cash it too is sitting on or penalize them

We raise the top tax rate up to 50% then 60% until we get to 75%

All together plenty of money flows into the Treasury to pay for a civil society and the rich are still rich and the economy booms

… but we won’t have good jobs for Xers, Ys and Millennials until we retire out the Boomers and shorten the work-week

40. Thiel's Revenge | April 25th, 2012 at 12:50 pm

Peter Thiel is a billionaire shit stain?

You seem to have no problem using Paypal for donations.

Oooo. Didja see that? Didja see what I did. I called your hypocrisy, man. I win! Woo-hoo! Peter Thiel is sure to recognize me now, he and I are basically on the same page, not like these envious hypocrites here. Man, am I clever or what, you know? Chances are, Peter Thiel will recognize me soon for being this “in the know” and he’ll let me smell his shit stain, maybe even rub my nose in it. Cool, huh?

Like for example, when I hear someone complain about the government, I always make sure to say to them, “You seem to have no problem using all these government services, h’m?” And you should just see how totally devastated they are. Or when people say, “The banks and Wall Street suck and are ruining everything,” I’m always the guy who’s there to say, “You seem to have no problem using banks to pull out your cash, h’m?”

See, I’m the guy who thinks that you should never, ever criticize anyone powerful. Like, what does that make you when you criticize them yet still use the services they’ve got a monopoly on and forced you to use? It makes you a hypocrite. And it makes me a One Percenter in my mind, which is the most important place of all.

41. damn red | April 25th, 2012 at 3:47 pm

@30 Here is the answer to your question. First capitalism is a economic system. Second our system is capitalistic. So in order for people to survive in a capitalist system they have to abide by the rules of the system which requires them to sell/beg/whore themselves out to be able to reproduce said labor. It’s the argument for if everyone worked in a coop they still need to sell their labors on an open market and hence they would need to exploit themselves in order to meet the socially required labor time for said product. Calling someone a hypocrite for living in a certain system is quite moronic but of course this will all fly over your head anyway. Feels great to waste my time. And yes you are an idiot.

42. darthfader | April 25th, 2012 at 3:49 pm

My policy suggestion is to kill the rich, and take their things

43. gc | April 25th, 2012 at 4:34 pm

@ the Almighty Exiled Censor, re the evisceration of #34.

You, sir or madam, have brightened my evening. Thank you.

The A.E.C. responds,

“Hey, it’s all about you, the reader, and bringing a little moonlight into your evenings, you know? Where would the AEC be without you, the little commenters?”

44. Yep | April 25th, 2012 at 7:29 pm

Well done. Remember, Divide and Rule is one of the chief plays in the Neoliberal/NeoCon playbook, be it generational, racial, sexist, regional, xenophobia, etc.

45. TG | April 25th, 2012 at 7:49 pm

As a Gen Xer, I dislike the smug, special-snowflake Boomer generation for a lot of reasons. Even that dislike, however, doesn’t extend to screwing with people’s pensions and Social Security and Medicare — you don’t do that to old people who’ve been paying into the fund in good faith. I say that taking into account the fact that the Boomer generation has basically been voting for and cheerleading neoConservative politics and neoLiberal economics for the past 30 years.

Not that anyone’s able to stop the runaway train of Reaganism at this late stage. At least my generation knew we were screwed from the get-go and braced ourselves accordingly — we expected less and enjoyed what scraps we got and the occasional windfalls we lucked into during the 90s.

The Millenials … well, let me put it this way: combine all that Boomer-style parenting (“you’re special and a star, just like me!”) with an economic depression we’re not gonna pull out of for another decade adds up to major, Texas-tower-shooter levels of malaise and disappointment for these young people.

Me, I’m throwing my lot in with them. Tech and gadget fan though I am, I’m not about unbridled and unsustainable consumerism like Kilpatrick is. But I’m with him on that 20-hour workweek and opting out of the Puritan Work Ethic BS that the Boomers latched onto the minute Reagan was elected.

For reasons unclear to me, the Millenials I know come to me for advice on all sorts of matters. So I’m happy to clue them in to the many ways the HR/4th Purpose Culture will attempt to screw them over. I encourage them to find a balance between enjoying life in whatever way they see fit and doing just enough (and no more) to finance it. And while I’m not about to sell out the Boomers on Social Security and Medicare, as long as they’re hanging on to those managerial and executive positions at the office it pleases me to instill a slacker mentality in some of their young employees.

46. Epode | April 25th, 2012 at 8:13 pm

Give me the order and I will follow you into hell.

I’m serious. I need to know what I can do to aid the predicament of the lion’s share of Americans.

Help me help the rest of us.

47. TG | April 25th, 2012 at 8:19 pm

@32

If you are indeed asking this seriously, you’re a literal-minded boob — the kind of idiot who gets very confused when classical literature discusses things like an “army of 10,000 swords.”

But I understand, synecdoche (co-incidentally from the Greek) is difficult to grasp for many products of the US public education system. So if you want to learn about the situation in Greece, read the news. USA Today seems about your speed, and in its recent archives you’ll find one story about a retired Greek pharmacist who doused himself in petrol and lit himself on fire because (per his suicide note) he didn’t want to spend his remaining years shopping for meals in trash bins.

And read history, because those of us who do understand the obvious fact that, when you combine economic depression with planned or organic austerity, you get nice solid citizens who never thought they’d be dumpster-diving or selling their bodies doing just that.

48. Alexei Belyaev-Gintovt | April 26th, 2012 at 8:50 am

gonna bring like 3298328238943589735494834389 books to your next book signing, hb.

^ another good idea: round up and shoot everyone who uses “whilst” seriously, because these people are nothing but problems

51. Alexei Belyaev-Gintovt | April 26th, 2012 at 12:47 pm

will also spill a sugary beverage

52. rimmer directive | April 26th, 2012 at 5:59 pm

I really would like to believe a 20 hour work week were sustainable but I’m not an economist so I really can’t say

53. Jesse | April 26th, 2012 at 6:38 pm

@32 Anton

Zero sum fallacy. Poor workers don’t get enough because rich people get more. As if we can’t PRODUCE more. This system is not efficiently bringing together the means of production: labor, tools, natural resources. Labor is willing and idle, natural resources are held idle, tools are monopolized, but most importantly, DEBT is fucking up production before it even gets started and then sucking up production at every stage, choking the shit out of everything; taking the tools out of worker’s hands; taking the land under worker’s feet; and demanding the first fruit of even that pathetic pittance of production that manages to eke by. And the motherfucker DEBT KINGS have never given workers anything that either didn’t already exist, like land, or wasn’t produced by labor, like tools. So why are we so stupid and cowed to keep paying DEBT even while it grinds us down to mass poverty when we could all be living like kings?

54. LIExpressway | April 26th, 2012 at 9:56 pm

“The only like-minded people I’ve met was a well traveled older guy who was born before 45 and a Vietnam war veteran who practically lived his life in a local public library.”

Internet gold star comment. I painfully relate…

55. tom | April 27th, 2012 at 12:02 am

I’m 26. I volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008 (although in reality I’m a Rush fan–see solyndra ref below) , and I’m not voting for him this time. I was his strongest supporter, so I think there will be a lot of other young people voting the other way or just not voting this time around.

Hope and change? Solyndra, no prosecution of banks and Corexit.

56. Mr. Bad | April 27th, 2012 at 12:13 am

@53. Jesse

Produce more air, more water, more moon bases you fucking nitwit? When you scream about socialism and “idle” workers you’re just basically explaining what an entitled cunt you are, do you know that? What “system” would you use to compel higher productionz? I’m not eager to work at some shitty fucking job for the betterment of my fellow man unless I have to, nor is any sane person, wtf are you talking about “living like kings”. Naw, I don’t think so, you haven’t been out of the states much huh? Yeah there’s more than enough to go around for the whole fucking planet – but not to live out your FDR era “chicken in every wok” utopian worldwide suburb.

So what are you going to motivate me with, floggings, trips to Disneyland, or both? Your stupid idea of revolution is just putting different maniacs in charge.

57. Jesse | April 27th, 2012 at 1:22 pm

Sorry I don’t have a cite but somewhere I read where F. Buckminster Fuller did a study in the sixties to calculate out how much labor it would take to live a comfortable western lifestyle. He assumed everybody in this model works productively, making goods and services and exchanging with each other. Bucky figured 2 hours of work a day should do it.

58. super390 | April 27th, 2012 at 4:35 pm

“back then, the good guys sounded just like Paul Ryan, preaching the glories of private property and fretting about “class warfare” brewing in the cities…”

It was the threat of worker revolution that brought bourgeoise liberals to the cause of reform a century ago. You take that threat away, and you get the kind of liberals we have now.

Time to bring that threat back…

59. Whatever | April 27th, 2012 at 11:17 pm

And yet the problem of screaming “I GOT MINE!” boomers and Greatest remain.

The old Stay-At-Home-Mother who says “My husband worked hard for that check” who then turns and says: “They should take a job, any job.”

And that is a very common attitude among the old and comfortable.

So, while gutting them may not be productive, letting them sit on their money pile and rave at young people for being “lazy scum” isn’t all that useful either.

The thing is the millennials CAN do something to fuck up the machine. If they’re enough of them and they care enough. There’s lots of paper that has to circulate on Wall Street and between Wall Street and midtown (I know because I used to be a bike messenger in New York) so why not gum up the works? Unless signatures have been re-ajudicated to have the same weight as paper and ink ones then a hundred thousand or so people standing sitting marching and lying passed out in the street (has anybody thought of this method of passive resistance? you keep a supply of prescription drugs and alcohol in reserve and then when the riot cops show up you down them and slip into a coma,then, normally the police have to call EMS to take care of you, well maybe they’ll stop doing this but then think of the trouble of processing and holding comatose people). I’d say this summer you turn TRIBECA into a GG Allin concert three hundred thousand performers strong, all of you getting naked high and bleeding fucking pissing and shitting in te streets or you spend the rest of your life as Barneby the Scrivner.

61. Jesse | April 28th, 2012 at 12:27 pm

@56 Mr. Bad

Thinking at first you meant to reply to someone else’s post, I reread your comment for anything that could remotely bear relevance to my own. And there they were: five words apparently plucked out at random as a launching point for your alcohol-fueled diatribe: “idle…system….living like kings.”

Glad I could help.

62. Mr. Bad | April 28th, 2012 at 3:07 pm

Thanks for the “relevance” check. While your at it could you flesh out the design of this new society based on Buckminster’s calculations and forward us all a copy, preferably in .pdf format? The more derivative marxist jargon you include the better, that’s always very effective. Sorry gotta go, the workers have seized the means of production again (that means your mom is pulling on my balls and I have to take a dump on her chest before she’ll let go).

63. Davrus | April 28th, 2012 at 6:14 pm

@57 While I’m willing to take your word for it that everyone on the planet could potentially live like kings, with everyone working 20 hour weeks (or less)… if we could get enough natural resources to feed the factories. Do you have any sources too show that their are enough natural resources that every person in India can consume the same amount as a person in the US? How far off is asteroid mining anyway.

64. Punjabi From Karachi | April 29th, 2012 at 3:33 am

Needless to say Marche also fails to mention that the Social Security tax is capped after the first $110,100 of income, which means that a billionaire shitstain like Peter Thiel pays the same amount of cash into the system as a Nurse Practitioner

This fact, about no tax being paid into social security beyond the first $110,000 bracket, is a fact that needs to be repeated over and over again to shut down any of these hatchet arguments made against social security.

No rich person pays for it, beyond their initial tax bracket.

65. Punjabi From Karachi | April 29th, 2012 at 3:49 am

Good essay. An excellent summation by the way, of some of the eXile’s most salient points, as seen through the eyes of an under 25 or a millenial. But I’ll read Against Thrift first, before I give a shit about Das Kapital. I do have those reactionary 80’s roots Ames & Dolan are going on about and I know in those two, they still go strong. I agree with that aesthetic.

In the meantime though, Chris Hedges is annoying, healthcare and education for all can be simpler to administer and I just would like to see capitalism whither and die on the wine.

Now tell us what’s the plan for a summer of Occupy.

66. Punjabi From Karachi | April 29th, 2012 at 5:12 am

Actually, for a while, the Millenial label is useful. You can use age categorisation as a way to separate the Occupy movement from the Tea Party phenomenon, demonstrating to a younger generation how the Tea Party right doesn’t have their interests at heart. You don’t see many millenials at a Tea Party rally. The age categorisation is a more useful way to explain politics to a politcal novice.

Occupy can gel with the interests of a generation.

And kudos for bringing the prison industrial complex up; it’s one of those things that certainly does affect the millenial generation disproportionately. And anybody who brings up class and generational warfare without mentioning the United States Gulag Archipelego, is a dilletante that should be avoided.

67. Punjabi From Karachi | April 29th, 2012 at 5:27 am

What else, what else….Generation X’s slacky, ironic detachment, as you mentioned in the title to your piece on the Rally to Restore Sanity, is a contrast to the greater earnestness of the Millenials. I guess we Millenials are so much more sincerer 😉 I think there`s a polemic on hating on Gen X there somewhere. Although Connor Kirkpatrick, is implicitly moving against hate, the eXile`s Raison dè tre. I wonder what the eXile will do, now that it’s being asked not to hate, lol.

And when you wrote that piece about America`s radicals being anti-capitalist but historically having that fact covered up, we had Occupy ;D

The eXile`s depression serves a useful purpose.

68. Punjabi From Karachi | April 29th, 2012 at 5:30 am

“Testing, 1, 2, 3, Testing 😀 ;D 😉 ”

69. rehmat1 | April 29th, 2012 at 8:59 pm

It’s tempting to think that this is uncle Doland’s new pen name. Turn the kiddies away from the gore porn and get them to think about economic issues. In the end, I doubt this is Doland, but Kilpatrick is a very good writer who is probably glad to have himself mistaken for uncle D.

More, please.

70. x | April 30th, 2012 at 7:40 am

everyone see #39. That’s the answer, or at least one of them.

71. Punjabi From Karachi | April 30th, 2012 at 11:27 pm

I liked Sparky (#33), but seriously, #39 is like x (#70) said, the future.

Ctrl + F for radii

72. trouble | May 1st, 2012 at 7:06 am

@12 Mr. Bad Liar

When, where and from what agency did a single adult male easily get food stamps?

73. Mr.Bad | May 1st, 2012 at 2:01 pm

72. trouble

Maybe the Exiled should so a FAQ? But yeah, you walk in a say “I don’t have a job or a place to live” and they say “take this card” and you say “OK”. Stop being a fucktwit, you cunt ass fucktwit.

74. darthfader | May 1st, 2012 at 2:59 pm

When are y’all going to send Foust to the camps for good

75. darthfader | May 1st, 2012 at 3:05 pm

And the answer for the future is actually #42

76. trouble | May 1st, 2012 at 8:18 pm

@73 Mr. Bad Liar

You’re a liar, you fucking little bitch liar. You were never homeless. You’re not bad. You’re just a little nasty twat.

77. Mr. Bad | May 3rd, 2012 at 4:40 pm

@ 74. darthfader

Taking a day off from gay anime pron to post here, thanks for your insight!

@ 76. trouble

The fact that you don’t know how easy it is to get food stamps shows to go you you’re still hanging with mom on Friday night. Make sure to ask for extra servings to build up your strength, you’ll need them soon.

78. R` | May 7th, 2012 at 4:08 am

No. Disagree. It’s the Boomers, who both invented and have succumbed to a distinctly generational form of moral capitalism. Partly, this latter-day blind submission to the twaddling metaphysics of work and income derives from the Boomers’ wide-ranging stupidity about basic hedonic calculus. It may be something imprinted in them by their oppressive Depression-era parents; certainly, it’s no less crazy than bribing the local cat not to tell some donkey about a recent sexy occult experiment you underwent with the Parson’s daughter. The Wall St plutocracy are titanic crooks, d’accord, but the sea of pre-GFC credit and debt liens swept into the bank accounts of millions of neo-Heian filchers, Bill-Manhire or Gordon-Brown wannabes, all across the globe. It wasn’t just CBD bankers, but also the psychotherapists, academics, doctors, school principals. They are all the architects of the current soft totalitarianism.

79. VikingLS | May 7th, 2012 at 11:19 pm

I don’t know, from what I can see the boomers have been doing a lot of preemptive defamation of the millenials, particularly OWS. One or two articles making thier case in a few big name magazines doesn’t offset the fact that the millenials and gen X get the pleasure of spend most of their adult lives cleaning up the Boomer’s messes while the boomers sneer about the young people with their cell phone addiction.

“Liberals have always been useful servants. And they’ve been following their spiritual masters in the Democratic Party over the free market cliff for decades, even now as they squeeze out a few about inequality. Hey, they’ll always have a pet project.”

According to Pew data (Beyond Red vs Blue), around half of liberals are independents. And, within the Democratic Party, only about 1/3 are liberals with the other 2/3 about evenly split between moderates and conservatives.

Many liberals, along with being independents, are varying degrees of radical. There are quite a few leftist-leaning and leftist-embracing liberals. The American traditions of liberalism and radicalism both have roots in the political philosophy of Thomas Paine.

Leave a Comment

(Open to all. Comments can and will be censored at whim and without warning.)

Listen to the Radio War Nerd podcast [subscribe here] with guest Gunnar Hrafn Jonsson of Iceland Public Radio on the massacre in Orlando and how online Islamic State jihadis are dealing with battlefield defeats and the shrinking caliphate. Subscribe to Radio War Nerd through the show’s Patreon page.

The political establishment’s racist, authoritarian reaction to the 1992 LA riots—blaming broken black families, massing cops and troops, and Ron Paul’s advice to his family on how to kill black “animals” and get away with it…